Summer Movies and Books

I'm kind of in between semesters except for a few hrs in the writing center and a number of projects I should finish before summer semester in a week and half. Having this extra time I've endulged in several movies and finally gotten around to a few of the books stacked on my desk and end table.

Wife and I watched Shut up and sing about the Dixie Chicks (well really the lead singer, Natalie Maines) "controversial" statements about being embarrassed that Bush was also from Texas. Wife and I really enjoyed the film and our respect for the Chicks grew--only slight disagreement was when I said, in earshot of a kid or two, in defense of Natalie's use of the F-word: "I think she is quite sexy when she uses the F-word." By which, I quickly added, I mean every time she used it in the film she was highlighting her tenacity in fighting against Bush, the war, and the shalacking they were taking by country music fans and radio stations. I think women can be sexy when they are tough--that was my point. Next time I might wait till said children are in bed to offer such profound insights into the F-word.

I just finished The Good Shepherd and I'm going to go out on a limb, even though I don't have a carefully crafted argument to support my claim: TGS should have gotten several nominations, one for best actor, Matt Damon, and one for best picture/director (it only got best art F.... direction! I thought it was genius but it seems understated, low key, subtle movies/
performances often get overlooked unless they are of the Merchant-Ivory variety. The film continues to float around in my head, especially Damon's character which was skillfully portrayed with nuance and reservation.

Oldest son and I finally watched Independence Day (certainly a fun popcorn movie as one review put it) and Pan's Labrynth (after hearing about it during the Oscars). Pan's was a wonderful, deliciously dark fantasy mixed with realism. A few gratuitous violent scenes which we fast-forwarded but the rest was spot on. I really appreciated how the film works both as a "real" (like this happened) fantasy/fairy tale and as a realistic psychological display of a child's struggle to deal with a the wicked (and very evil) step-father.

I'm reading both The Spiral Staircase: My Climb out of darkness by Karen Armstrong and The God Delusion by the infamous Richard Dawkins. I'm not as far in the Dawkin's book as it doesn't have an engaging narrative like Armstrong's story of her recovery from seven years in a convent, but still the parallels are stricking. Armstrong, renowned religious scholar, retells her painful journey back to "regular" life, working through anxiety attacks, dangerous amnesiac episodes, and a bout with anorexia. Not only does she fail as a nun, she then fails her Oxford dissertation, thought a very controversial failure, after years of work. Somehow, as I kind of know how things will turn out, she makes it through all this to become a self-sponsored scholar, writing definitive works on all of the major relgions. Amazingly, on some level (not as "believer"), she works through the hate and dismissal of religion and turns it into her career. I can't wait to see how exactly she does this and compare it side by side with Dawkin's absolute refusal to see religion as anything but deception.